They Were Like Giants
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: Rose/Ten II. He'd always wanted to experience human life. When it's forced on him, the Doctor finds that it disappoints.


The Doctor had always thought that humans seemed so very large in the scheme of the universe. Not just as a race, spanning endlessly throughout the galaxies during the latter part of recorded history, but as 'ordinary' individuals as well. It had stunned him that they didn't seem to realise how spectacular they were. He'd considered that perhaps it was that very ignorance that allowed them to unwittingly tower above their own perceptions of themselves. They were able to be wonderful precisely because they didn't know it.

He could see it, though, even if the truth of it was a little beyond them. Human beings had all of that energy and life, and so little time into which to cram it all. As a consequence, they lived their lives more fully than almost any species the Doctor had ever encountered. Certainly, they relished life more than the Time Lords ever had. Even the Doctor. He'd always envied them a little for that.

After nearly a thousand years of living, the Doctor had thought that the play of a single human life unfolding was a greater form of mystery and entertainment than witnessing even the beginnings and endings of whole worlds.

After just a year of living that life, though – the sort of life he'd never believed he'd have the chance to experience – the Doctor had absolutely changed his mind.

He'd always flitted in and out of their lives so quickly, or taken them out of those lives and drawn them into his mad world. As a result, he'd never truly grasped the drudgery of the slow path that humans had to follow. There was work and eating and sleep and little to break the monotony. He remembered teasing Rose about just that when he'd met her, but from his perspective it had really been empty words. He hadn't realised then just how true it was.

Humanity, it turned out, was a bit overrated.

People spread across the Earth like ants, all with assigned jobs that needed to be repeated over and over again just keep things running. The Doctor, for a whole year, had very nearly become yet another of the drones. He'd worked at Torchwood, and lived in a flat with four walls and a solid roof and floor pressing in around him, and cooked for himself and Rose when it was his turn, and _done the washing_, of all things. He'd been living a life, day to day.

It was killing him, he admitted to himself. He was just so tired of it.

What choice did he have, though? His mode of escape from this life had been piloted away without so much as a by-your-leave and the walls of the universes had closed after it. He was stuck.

He tried to imagine another fifty years of _that_ stretching out in front of him. The mere thought of it made him feel already just a little bit dead inside.

He arrived back at the flat after yet another long day of numbing mediocrity, only to have something shoved into his arms hard enough to physically drive him back out the door again.

"What?" he asked, looking down at the swollen blue backpack on which he was just barely keeping a grip.

Rose slung the straps of a similar backpack, this one in a pink so dark it looked almost purple, across her shoulders. "Turn around," she said. "We're goin'."

"What?" he said.

"Just trust me," she pleaded.

He didn't repeat his question again. He didn't need to. At the look in her eyes, he slid his backpack on, mirroring hers, and let the door of the flat fall closed. The sound seemed somehow final. He was glad of it, even though he didn't have a clue what it meant.

He didn't quite know what was happening. It thrilled him. Normally he loved to be the one in control, of course, but he'd had enough of structure in his life lately. He certainly didn't mind handing over the reins if Rose was going to be the one to catch onto them. There was no one in the entirety of time and space he'd ever trusted and believed in the way he did Rose Tyler. He'd follow where she led any day, if she asked.

That didn't mean, though, that he wasn't itching to find out where on Earth they were going.

She tugged him by the hand into the nearest Tube station, teeming with the post-work crowd. They fought against the tide, their interlaced fingers clinging tightly with their unwillingness to be parted for even a moment in the midst of that bustle.

They boarded a train. Though the choice seemed to be completely at random to the Doctor, the determination on Rose's face suggested that she had some sort of plan that she was working towards.

It didn't matter either way. He'd travelled on the Underground all the time lately, of course, but this was different. Regardless of whether Rose had a specific purpose in mind in dragging him out into the city without warning, the important thing was that it seemed like an adventure. He needed that so badly that the mere idea of it left a pleasant sort of tang in his mouth.

They arrived at King's Cross Station and Rose decisively led him off the train and up across the street into St Pancras.

Apparently, the Doctor realised, the Eurostar was a common concept across universes.

"We're going to Paris?" the Doctor asked, gobsmacked. Whatever he'd thought the packed bag and the impromptu journey might signify, it hadn't been this.

"For starters," Rose agreed. "What d'you think? French food, the wrong verbs, gettin' overcharged and kissin' complete strangers?"

He caught the reference, of course ("Time travel is like visiting Paris," he'd said). Suddenly he understood. She couldn't give him travel through time and space the way he really wanted, but she could still give him this much. He hadn't realised it, as focused on his own plight as he'd been, but it seemed that somehow she understood how much the memory of his old life and the inability of this new existence to measure up had been driving him mad. Perhaps that understanding was even because she'd felt restless too.

He imagined it for a moment. No more Torchwood. No more flat. Just the two of them and the world spread beneath them, able to go anywhere their feet (or some form of transport) could take them.

For the first time the Doctor felt as if his ineffective part-human lungs had finally managed to open up properly. He could _breathe_. He'd forgotten what it felt like to not feel stifled. The weight that had been compressing his chest was lifted with the offer of the two things that he wanted most in the universe.

Rose Tyler and freedom.

French food, the wrong verbs, getting overcharged and kissing complete strangers, she'd said.

"No," the Doctor disagreed to that firmly. Rose's face fell for a moment, obviously believing he'd vetoed her wonderful plan. The Doctor, however, was quick to beam at her, signalling otherwise. "There'll be no kissing of any strangers, thanks very much," he added mischievously.

The smile that bloomed on her face was the most genuine expression he'd seen from her in far too long. Perhaps she'd been being strangled by the day-to-day as much as he had, after all.

They had to clutch firmly at each other and shuffle around a bit to prevent the weight of their backpacks from pulling them apart as they kissed, in full view of hundreds of potentially judgmental strangers. Strangely, though, it still felt like the least awkward thing he'd done since the metacrisis. Possibly ever.

Rose broke away after a while and giggled slightly, prying herself away so that she could go and buy tickets before the next train could leave them behind. The Doctor pulled her close again once she'd returned and let her bag drop beside their feet.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She didn't respond except to lay her head against his shoulder, her breath warming his collarbone through the material of his shirt.

When they finally boarded, the train was exactly the same size on the inside as one would expect from looking at the outside. With the energised sparkle of Rose's eyes to distract him, though, the Doctor barely even noticed.

However limited this means of travel was compared to a TARDIS, at that moment the Doctor felt like they could go anywhere.

The world around him still seemed small. Traversing across it, though, he though he just might be able to reach the heights he'd always thought humans could achieve effortlessly. For the first time in a year, with Rose at his side and the world at his fingertips, _anything_ suddenly seemed possible again.

Together, he and Rose could stand like giants after all.

~FIN~


End file.
